


I Have Cried My tears For You

by SincerelyWaving



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Basically Zoe mourning her brother, I made people cry with this, i live off of people's pain, im not sorry, really sad, this is just
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 14:52:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14571387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SincerelyWaving/pseuds/SincerelyWaving
Summary: Basically just Zoe mourning her brother a year too lateI'm not sorry with how sad this isI posted this on the DEH Amino awhile ago and made people cry so here goes





	I Have Cried My tears For You

Zoe Murphy did not cry after the funeral. She did not cry before. She did not cry in the hospital, or as her brother was being lowered six feet under. She did not cry in the months that followed. Her mother cried. She cried often. Sometimes she would spend her entire day in her brother’s room, now mostly empty of his things. Her mother didn’t have the heart to get rid of them though, so they remained packed up in boxes in the attic.  
Zoe Murphy did not isolate herself. She smiled and spent time with her friends. They went to the mall, and homecoming, and she even got invited to prom. She did not isolate herself, locking herself away in her room. Her father isolated himself. He spent his days at his office, throwing himself into his work. When he was not at work, he remained in the garage doing anything and everything, distracting himself with old baseball gloves and power tools and wood.  
Zoe Murphy did not speak of her brother. Her friends learned that quickly. She could barely bring herself to say his name, but she did not mourn him. When she remembered him, her mind flashed to death threats and angry eyes. She thought of the smell of weed in his clothes and the dents in her door where he had slammed his fists into it. She could still his angry shouting at her through the door as she sat, curled up on her bed, shedding tears in secret.  
Zoe Murphy did not mourn her brother. She didn’t at least, until the day after her birthday. She sat on her bed. It had been an amazing birthday. Her mother and father had taken her to a zoo and her friends had surprised her with a birthday cake and the workers at the zoo had let her pet one of the cheetahs they had there. It was a wonderful day, but today was the day after. Her mother was out at some yoga class and her father was at work.  
Zoe Murphy was eighteen years old. She sat on her bed, staring blankly at a leftover slice of cake in front of her. The thought of eating it made her sick to her stomach. She was eighteen today. Her brother wasn’t eighteen. He always would say he was a year older, but he was just shy of eleven months older. She was older then her brother now. When she was a kid, she always wondered what it was like to be the older sister. She had imagined it to be this grand thing where her mother and father put her in charge of her little brother all the time, and she would feel powerful.  
Zoe Murphy was empty. She wasn’t always empty. She remembered when she and her brother were close, so full of life and light. She remembered trips to the old orchard and four-leafed clovers and crashed toy planes. She remembered her brother tackling her to the ground in a yellow field, mercilessly tickling her as she laughed and laughed and laughed. She remembered when her brother loved her. She remembered picnics, his little league practices, their family trips to the zoo.  
Zoe Murphy did not forget the pain in his eyes. She couldn’t forget the anger, the hatred. But she also couldn’t forget the suffering she saw when she came to get him for dinner. They days where he all but locked himself in his room and lay in his bed, an empty far-away look in his eyes. She remembered the scars on his arms when he had forgotten to cover them up. She remembered the fear in his eyes.  
Zoe Murphy remembered the first time she had come home from a canceled jazz practice to find her brother hanging from his ceiling. She remembered her scream as she hurried into action. She could still hear the paramedics telling her in the hospital that if she had gotten their a few minutes later, her brother would have been dead. Her brother’s piercing confused look as he asked her why she had bothered to save him still haunted her.  
Zoe Murphy could feel tears running down her cheeks. She was now officially older than him. She was the older sister. She covered her mouth with her hand, muffling the scream that threatened to break through. She squeezed her eyes shut. The tears fell faster as it all hit her. She couldn’t forget all the pain he had caused her, but she could remember his broken eyes. He needed help and she had seen that, but she hadn’t done anything. After his first try, life had moved on and they had all forgotten it. He should have gotten help. He should have survived. He should be her older brother still.  
Zoe Murphy pulled on her hair, the indigo streaks in it fading. Her older brother was gone and he wasn’t coming back. She remembered the first time he had run away. She had stayed up all night, terrified for him. When he came back the next morning with a black eye and smelling of weed, his eyes downcast and bloodshot she could remember yelling at him. She was scared and he had left. He hadn’t said anything until she was finished. When she stopped yelling, he had looked up and snarled at her, shoving her out of the way and slamming the door in her face.  
Zoe Murphy had not cried for her brother. She had not isolated herself. She had not sung a requiem for the monster he had become. But here she was, sitting on her bed, a cold piece of cake forgotten in front of her, crying her eyes out for all she could have done. This was her fault. She had seen, and she had ignored. Her older brother was dead, and it was her fault. A breath hitched in her throat.  
Zoe Murphy blamed herself for this. It was her fault her older brother was laying in the dirt, now younger than her. As her tears came to a stop, she took a deep breath. He was gone, and she had cried the tears that were a long time coming. She could have saved him, but she knew that he wouldn’t have wanted her to wallow in self-pity. He would have wanted her to do something, to be something. Even on his worst days, she knew that he believed in her ability to make a life for herself.  
Zoe Murphy opened her mouth and pushed out the words she hadn’t spoken in months, the two little words that felt too foreign on her tongue.  
“Connor Murphy.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sorry


End file.
